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Register a new userShort remarks on possible production of defects in low temperature semiconductor detectors for dark matter physics experiments
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The nature of dark matter is still an open problem, but there is evidence that a large part of the dark matter in the universe is non-baryonic, non-luminous and non-relativistic and hypothetical Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are candidates that satisfy all of the above criteria. In order to minimize the ambiguities in the identification of WIMPs interactions in their search, in more experiments, two distinct quantities are simultaneously measured: the ionization and phonon or light from scintillation signals. Silicon and germanium crystals are used in some experiments. In this paper we discuss the production of defects in semiconductors due to WIMP interactions and estimate their contribution in the energy balance. This phenomenon is present at all temperatures, is important in the range of keV energies, but is not taken into consideration in the usual analysis of experimental signals and could introduce errors in identification for WIMPs.
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The direct detection of dark matter particles requires ultra-low background conditions at energies below a few tens of keV. Radioactive isotopes are produced via cosmogenic activation in detectors and other materials and those isotopes constitute a background source which has to be under control. In particular, tritium is specially relevant due to its decay properties (very low endpoint energy and long half-life) when induced in the detector medium, and because it can be generated in any material as a spallation product. Quantification of cosmogenic production of tritium is not straightforward, neither experimentally nor by calculations. In this work, a method for the calculation of production rates at sea level has been developed and applied to some of the materials typically used as targets in dark matter detectors (germanium, sodium iodide, argon and neon); it is based on a selected description of tritium production cross sections over the entire energy range of cosmic nucleons. Results have been compared to available data in the literature, either based on other calculations or from measurements. The obtained tritium production rates, ranging from a few tens to a few hundreds of nuclei per kg and per day at sea level, point to a significant contribution to the background in dark matter experiments, requiring the application of specific protocols for target material purification, material storing underground and limiting the time the detector is on surface during the building process in order to minimize the exposure to the most dangerous cosmic ray components.
The current status of the DRIFT (Directional Recoil Identification From Tracks) experiment at Boulby Mine is presented, including the latest limits on the WIMP spin-dependent cross-section from 1.5 kg days of running with a mixture of CS2 and CF4. Planned upgrades to DRIFT IId are detailed, along with ongoing work towards DRIFT III, which aims to be the worlds first 10 m3-scale directional Dark Matter detector.
The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS II) experiment aims to detect dark matter particles that elastically scatter from nuclei in semiconductor detectors. The resulting nuclear-recoil energy depositions are detected by ionization and phonon sensors. Neutrons produce a similar spectrum of low-energy nuclear recoils in such detectors, while most other backgrounds produce electron recoils. The absolute energy scale for nuclear recoils is necessary to interpret results correctly. The energy scale can be determined in CDMS II silicon detectors using neutrons incident from a broad-spectrum $^{252}$Cf source, taking advantage of a prominent resonance in the neutron elastic scattering cross section of silicon at a recoil (neutron) energy near 20 (182) keV. Results indicate that the phonon collection efficiency for nuclear recoils is $4.8^{+0.7}_{-0.9}$% lower than for electron recoils of the same energy. Comparisons of the ionization signals for nuclear recoils to those measured previously by other groups at higher electric fields indicate that the ionization collection efficiency for CDMS II silicon detectors operated at $sim$4 V/cm is consistent with 100% for nuclear recoils below 20 keV and gradually decreases for larger energies to $sim$75% at 100 keV. The impact of these measurements on previously published CDMS II silicon results is small.
In the past decades, several detector technologies have been developed with the quest to directly detect dark matter interactions and to test one of the most important unsolved questions in modern physics. The sensitivity of these experiments has improved with a tremendous speed due to a constant development of the detectors and analysis methods, proving uniquely suited devices to solve the dark matter puzzle, as all other discovery strategies can only indirectly infer its existence. Despite the overwhelming evidence for dark matter from cosmological indications at small and large scales, a clear evidence for a particle explaining these observations remains absent. This review summarises the status of direct dark matter searches, focussing on the detector technologies used to directly detect a dark matter particle producing recoil energies in the keV energy scale. The phenomenological signal expectations, main background sources, statistical treatment of data and calibration strategies are discussed.
More target mass is required in current TPC based directional dark matter detectors for improved detector sensitivity. This can be achieved by scaling up the detector volumes, but this results in the need for more analogue signal channels. A possible solution to reducing the overall cost of the charge readout electronics is to multiplex the signal readout channels. Here, we present a multiplexer system in expanded mode based on LMH6574 chips produced by Texas Instruments, originally designed for video processing. The setup has a capability of reducing the number of readouts in such TPC detectors by a factor of 20. Results indicate that the important charge distribution asymmetry along an ionization track is retained after multiplexed signals are demultiplexed.
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